Ruckus, Qualcomm, KDDI test much-improved carrier Wi-Fi in Tokyo

[Breaking News] by Claus Hetting | February 25, 2018

By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman

Shibuya Station in Tokyo, Japan is the world’s second-busiest train station and hence the perfect place to test new high-density carrier Wi-Fi technology. And that’s exactly what Ruckus Wireless, Qualcomm, and Japanese carrier KDDI did successfully last week.

The three companies report (read the Qualcomm press release here) the successfull testing of a set of features belonging to the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Vantage program. And the results are impressive: Up to 10 times faster connection setup times as well as 30% more efficient use of network resources. The test was conducted on KDDI’s public Wi-Fi network at Shibuya Station using Qualcomm-powered devices and Ruckus Wireless access points.

The test was particularly focused on verifying so-called ‘Vantage 2’ features – officially known by the Wi-Fi Alliance as ‘Wi-Fi Optimized Connectivity’ – that include the 802.11ai and 802.11k Wi-Fi enhancement standards. 802.11ai is also known as ‘Fast Initial Link Setup’ (or FILS), while 802.11k enhances Wi-Fi radio resource management with tools to discover the best available access point. Qualcomm says it’s the first vendor to make the new features available commercially.

Independently, the Wi-Fi Alliance last week announced availability of the new Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Wi-Fi Optimized Connectivity certification program, a new component of the wider Wi-Fi Vantage certification suite. Read here for details on all parts of the Wi-Fi Vantage program.